Giro d’Italias Jaunt through Apeninnes continues today with another hilly scene running from the coast of Giulianova to Castelraimondo.
Phase Eight sets the tone for most of this Giro’s mountain stages with its toughest climbing bang bang in the middle of the day. There are a total of 3,800 m vertical gain – more than step seven, but more scattered, with more uncategorized climbs as well as four categorized climbs.
The 197 km stage occupies Bjerge Teramo and Piceno, with a category three climb in the CROCE di Casale to warm up the legs before the much harder, category 1 Valico di Santa Maria Maddalena on just after the halfway mark. It is 13.1 km long and an average of 7%, but it gets harder, the further up you go, with more gentle lower slopes an average of 6% before a 7 km section an average of 7% and hits heights of 14%.
It is followed by a long, technical descent before a number of more climbing and more falling, including up to a category three increase in Montelago by about 50 km to walk.
From there, the riders enter a finishing circuit in and around Castelraitondo, a city that will be well known to the viewers of Tirreno-Adriatico, one of the spring warming races. The most notable of the later climbs are the short, steep ramp up to Castel Santa Maria (12-13% gradients to 2 km), hosting today’s Red Bull kilometer, then a 12%, 800 m wall at gagliole.
The riders must be far awake throughout the day, as there is a technical descent down to 2 km to walk field, with a sharp right -hand man inside the closing kilometer and a slightly uphill. One for the punchier printer and Mads Pedersens in this world, or will the outbreak finally get some luck?
Rut card and profile
Start time
Phase Eight is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. 12.15 local time (11.15 BST) and should be completed before noon. 17.30 local time (16.30 BST).
Forecast
The up-and-down character of the climbing today and the fact that the final for the stage is not very tough should mean that GC dams are not tempted to have another crack after yesterday’s summit showdown. It opens to the door of the outbreak; We’ve had a couple of death -convicted escape attempts this week, but today it can be their first real chance.
Do Paul DoubleWho impressed on stage seven and took maximum coming points, have enough in the legs to give it another turn? Or will like Josh Tarling and Ben Turner get involved? Could home favorites Lorenzo Fortunato and Christian Scaroni delight the local crowds with a win? Today could really be anyone’s game.